Blog Archives

To the Is-Land Janet Frame Random House, $30.00, ISBN 9781869411305 The first volume of Janet Frame’s autobiography was initially a bit daunting to me. Not only because it’s the work of one of New Zealand’s most celebrated writers, but because…

In the Memorial Room Janet Frame Text, $35.00, ISBN 9781922147134 It will come as no surprise to readers of Janet Frame’s work that this hitherto unpublished novel is, before anything else, an examination of language, and the slippery, unreliable character…

Gorse is Not People: New and Uncollected Stories Janet Frame Penguin, $40.00, ISBN 9780143567707 The title story of this posthumous collection touches a memory almost 30 years old: in 1984 reading An Angel at My Table, the second volume…

In the first of two extracts from her 2012 Janet Frame lecture, Marilyn Duckworth looks back on her literary life. Reflections can startle when one peers across more than 50 years – the length of my time as a published…

The Frame Function: An Inside-out Guide to the Novels of Janet Frame Jan Cronin Auckland University Press, $49.99, ISBN 9781869404864 The Frame Function, Jan Cronin’s new monograph treating the novels of Janet Frame, is not the book it appears…

Dear Charles Dear Janet: Frame and Brasch in Correspondence Pamela Gordon and Denis Harold (eds) Holloway Press, $250.00, ISBN 9780986461804 As I’ve thought before about the Holloway Press, it’s a tricky business to bring out works of deliberately…

Gifted Patrick Evans Victoria University Press, $30.00, ISBN 9780864736376 A curious rumour about this new novel by Patrick Evans preceded its publication. The rumour was that Evans had done something exceptionally good and it came from people one didn’t…